Bastet

I don't get that one at all; he was just plain gross to look at, and there was certainly nothing about his personality or intellect to overcome that. There is not enough alcohol even in Vegas for me to hook up with him, let alone marry him, but, okay, I'll go with her "oops, we got married" one-nighter. Her staying married to and procreating with him, though? No. Susan was a lot better the first time around.

My favorite in this series remains the support group, because of the "Defense wins championships/Well, it does" exchange and the absolutely perfect wardrobes, but the equally perfect line delivery on the reactions to blue hair shoot that one towards the top of the list.

I tried to hold my nose and root for the Eagles, and if I thought the Giants had a chance at actually doing anything if they got in the playoffs I would have, but I really couldn't muster up any enthusiasm for them. Neither could their coach, so whatever. What's important was already achieved - the Cowboys are done. But now I have to root for Washington, since they're playing Tampa Bay (who I don't give a shit about normally, but with Tom Brady under center ... no). That game is going to suck, but I'm stoked about the rest in the NFC, since I like all the other NFC teams in the playoffs. On the AFC side, I do not care, as often happens. If the Steelers didn't have a rapist for QB, I'd root for them, but I guess I'll pull for Kansas City, but come Super Bowl I'd still be rooting for whichever team is representing the NFC unless it's the Bucs.

I've had some who never needed their claws trimmed, but some still have pretty long claws even with the scratching they do (which then sometimes get caught in blankets, screens, etc.). And some have very sharp claws, which I'd rather not have poked into my body during cuddles.

That sound you hear is me cackling. Suck it, Dallas!

I've never had a cat whose claws I couldn't trim. Some made it harder than others, but never to the point I couldn't do it, thankfully. Maddie and Baxter both let me do their mani-pedis with no objections during, but after his was done, Baxter always had to go "attack" his sister to prove he was still ferocious even without his talons (no, he wasn't, he never was, but she indulged him). Riley used to freak out, twist herself into a pretzel, and try to open my femoral artery, but I got it done, and it's pretty smooth sailing now - she mostly just goes limp (Civil Disobedience Kitty - her mommy taught her well). I usually do Bandit and Chester's (my parents' cats) claw trims because, while all they do is verbally fuss and maybe squirm a little, I can still get it done quicker than my mom (my dad is hopeless at this task). I used to do my friend's cat's claws, because the cat tolerated it fine from me but fussed for her, but between the pandemic and her moving about half an hour away, she's been on her own. The cat has to go in pretty regularly for blood tests, so she just has a vet tech do it then rather than messing with it herself.

Wow, everything I hated about Pratt in one line. Judgmental dickhead. That's why the only two times I liked him were 1) when he got over his damn self and helped Jing-Mei end her father's suffering and 2) when he died.

The Lunchbox can only do carry-out/delivery because of the pandemic, so business is down; whatever her share of whatever profit they eke out at this stage is not enough and she needs a steady paycheck.

Oh, yeah, I always assume Perry is home with Salem when they film these things, because normally she's not there, either. I've probably even posted that very thing here when Perry has been absent. And I love that they mostly keep her off camera. (I also don't think it's bad that they let her participate in this.) But this time Salem was there and he wasn't (whereas last time she was there [but her face was never shown], he was too), which didn't indicate anything to me other than a scheduling conflict until their wedding/relationship was not included when the other two were (nor was his involvement with the rescue shown/discussed, unlike the other spouses), at which point I idly wondered. We did see him in a clip, just as we did Marcel, so I don't think there's any animosity, I just wondered if they've shifted to a co-parenting relationship. (It doesn't matter either way, obviously.) Speaking of idle curiosity: Is Moe and Lizzy's baby a boy or girl? It was interesting to hear the wolf dog rescue went on until after midnight; obviously, the sheriffs backed down on their "get 'em all out by 5:00 or we take 'em out" when they realized VRC knew what they were doing and would be successful. I woke up thinking about Mr. Murray's reaction when Mariah told him Red died - "Oh, Lord have mercy" and punching the fence. That poor man was doing the best he could (and had the dog in the first place because a neighbor was mistreating him so he asked to take him) with ill health and little resources. It touched me then and now, as did his despair when he found out Brownie had heartworm, too, fearing he was going to lose them both. I'm so glad it was an early case, and he got to have Brownie with him until the end. (And glad Brownie was chipped to VRC, so they were notified when the family took him to the shelter after Murray died!)

To be fair, in that one she played a guardian movie star, not an angel. 🙂 "No, I'm just a movie star. I don't think I'd make angel if I died."

I enjoyed the 200th Episode celebration, even though the clips were well known (I'll never tire of watching Roxy Mama's reunion with her owner) - it's fun watching them watch themselves, and it was cool to watch some of them react to seeing things that happened before their time. I laughed at the contrast between Mariah so embarrassed at seeing her young self, and Tia just straightforward saying she was 15 years younger and 40 pounds lighter - and they used to have time to do hair and make-up before filming. Was this the first time we heard Tania say she had trouble getting and staying pregnant prior to having Salem, or did I just forget? I love how much she loves having a daughter. (I wonder if she and Perry are still together, or just co-parenting.) I also found it cute that while Mariah doesn't want kids and Tia would have been perfectly content without grandkids, they're both obviously close with the passel of spawn running around. Luke comforting anyone when they started to cry was sweet. I'm with Tia in loving the way Earl admitted he sucked as a criminal and needed something better to do. I joined all of them in tearing up again over Mr. Murray.

He wanted to tell her about transferring divisions (in order to have more time to raise Mark, especially now that his mom was gone). And probably to thank her, in his low-key Julio way, for everything she did to put and keep him on the path that ultimately resulted in him confronting and controlling his issues so that he was capable of being at this place in his life. (She brokered the compromise that let him stay on active duty in exchange for twice weekly anger management sessions for a year, suspended his ass without pay for five months when he failed and then not only took him back but put him right back out in the field [knowing he needed to feel like he still fit in and was needed] over Taylor's objections, and set things up for him to confront his residual anger over his wife's death [which was the biggest root of everything].)

And that's what Roseanne did, by returning to reality in the finale, and what The Conners continues to do: Show that, despite the "American dream", most people who are born poor die poor. And with unions all but gone and the middle class hanging on by a thread, that's even more true. The Conners' choices have always existed within a systemic framework - their own experiences as informed by institutional barriers - and evaluating them as if they're made in a vacuum misses the point.

I only ever casually watched Friends, and only for a few seasons, but even I know that Ross and Rachel were on the phone talking about how they regretted the "maybe we need a break" parting, this was crazy, and they could work on it, when he heard Mark in the background, turned into his usual jealous, paranoid, possessive self, didn't let her finish explaining why he was there, hung up, and fucked someone else hours later. I don't care what it technically was or wasn't when he did that, it was gross, and Rachel was not out of line for finding it something she couldn't get past. They were awful for each other - and Ross would be awful for anyone - and the idea that the "happy ending" was for her to give up a career-changing job in Paris to stay with his whiny ass makes me angry umpteen years after not even watching the finale to begin with. But back in that moment, I'm not mad at Rachel for being hurt by his actions and his cover-up attempt.

Oh, cool. I get the East Coast feed on my satellite, so that means MC will be airing from 9 a.m. to noon, way too early for me to watch TV (and I generally don't record things I've already seen numerous times), but I'm glad Lifetime was finally able to pick it up to add to The Closer. And, yay, more residuals for actors stuck at home.

I don't know if I've ever previously been so uninterested in the national championship. I didn't watch Alabama vs Notre Dame because I couldn't possibly root for either team, and I thought I'd watch Clemson vs Ohio State to root against the Buckeyes, but it turned out there was a Beat Bobby Flay marathon on Food Network at the same time and that sounded like a better use of my time. Alabama vs Ohio State? I'm sure I'll find something else to watch that night, too - maybe a 4-hour montage of bears shitting in the woods. With a different coach, I would root for Alabama just to root against Ohio State, but Saban could be coaching against the Dallas Cowboys and I couldn't bring myself to cheer for his team.

I recently re-watched this, which cemented my opinion I would love to take Emma from Team Summit (Spain) out for drinks and just bask in her greatness. It turns out (per this interview) she had cancer - a somewhat rare vulvar carcinoma that normally occurs in much older women - during the race! During training and competition, she'd been experiencing discomfort with the skin of her vulvar lips, using corticosteroid creams. As 2020 got underway, they were no longer relieving the discomfort, and she saw an increasing number of specialists before having a biopsy in May that revealed the cancer. She had surgery in June and subsequently underwent radiation and chemotherapy, easing back into walking, then biking and running. Then I watched the British Columbia season and am almost done with the Australia season (on YouTube). I haven't seen any of the original series since it aired, and it struck me, having recently marinated in the slick modern version, how open the show was back then about the resources required to be an adventure racer - the money shelled out for equipment and travel, the ability to take time away from work for training, etc. - and how many race and production crew were around at any given time. They also used to explicitly talk about the "eco" part of the challenge, how they had to carry out every single thing - including their own human waste - they brought in so as to not exploit the land they were traversing and how they participated in things like tree-planting in the host country before the race got started.

No need, since I wasn't arguing anything.

I'm probably at a table for one with this one, but I'm always annoyed when That's Entertainment winds up being TCM's New Year's Eve marathon. I've never been able to sit through anything close to the whole thing, and in fact even got bored years ago fast-forwarding through looking for the behind-the-scenes stuff.

I snack all day on New Year's and don't have dinner, but I usually make a really nice dinner on New Year's Eve (something I don't treat myself to all that often throughout the year because of how much time it takes and/or how much it costs). Tonight, though, I will be making a big bowl of spinach, artichoke, and cheese dip and opening a bag of tortilla chips. Washed down with gin and tonic.

I always forget to complain about this when the "Julio wants to become a foster parent" storyline starts in season five: He's already done this. So the whole thing with him asking how it works is bad enough, but then when they do the entire episode about Cynthia investigating him and later at long last approving him for emergency care of Little Adolf -- apparently, James Duff and the writers forgot their own show, since he got approved for emergency foster care back in The Closer. "Help Wanted" early in season six leads into that gross storyline where he lied about looking for the kid's mother because he wanted to keep him. (The kid was the son of an ICE agent who raped and murdered several undocumented women working as nannies for kids the son played with at a local park [the ICE agent then got shot in the head by Fritz during a stand-off with Brenda]; he had ditched the kid's mom in Mexico years before and Julio just up and decided she wasn't worthy and he and Mrs. Sanchez should raise the kid ... and then when he finally got caught and the mother his was found, he hit on her. Julio was fucking gross in The Closer, yo.) As part of his plan, he got approved as an emergency foster through DCFS. So he would not have been starting from scratch.

While I certainly think 2021 will gradually be a better year than this was (because it has indeed SUCKED; a whopping two things, one personal and one national, to celebrate in an entire year swallowed up by - I hope - the worst pandemic I'll ever experience and a horrifying response to the changes it necessitates?!), nothing is going to be different tomorrow other than putting up a new calendar. So while some of them are funny, I'm mostly just tired of all the "So long, 2020" memes people keep emailing me, like we just have to get through today and then we can breathe a big "it's all good" sigh of relief. 2020 is a period in the sequence of time, not a villain being vanquished at the stroke of midnight.

(I didn't re-watch this episode, and don't remember it with any detail, so I'm just going on what's recounted here): It sounds like it's not about why the first names weren't required for the Olsen twins (since first names usually aren't - although when they are is not clear cut; there are obvious rules, and then there are head-scratchers), but about why they (maybe) were for the Bush twins -- because that clue revolved around the origin of their first names. By his answer, the contestant seemed to sense that, thus trying to rattle off the two names that came from the grandmothers, without trying "Who are the Bushes?" as an answer that may have worked or, as I suspect, resulted in a BMS prompt.

The DVD is because season one didn't sell well enough to justify the cost of releasing future seasons. Maybe the same is true of streaming, although one would think that would be more in line with syndication (where this generally did okay) than with DVD sales. She's one of TV's most underrated actors. I mean, she's well respected in the industry at large (especially for her stage performances) and has plenty of fans, but she - probably partly because she started on a soap and her most famous prime time role was on a family sitcom - is not rattled off as frequently and easily as she should be when talk of acting detail* and range and elevating small screen material occurs. *With respect to her performance on this show, one of the little details I love is that when an episode is set in winter and an "exterior" door near her is opened, she'll react like there's a little chill. Standing in a Los Angeles soundstage under blazing studio lights, she behaves as would someone in snowy Connecticut.

Nine times out of ten, I would groan and roll my eyes at a scene like that. But Judith Light and Alyssa Milano sold it. I don't how many years it has been since I saw it, but I can hear Angela's exact inflection on "I do like Bonnie. But I love you." in my head right now.